, 1887-08-28
PEN PICTURE oE LINCOLN.
A Man Whose Physique Seemed All
AngIes-A Face of Peculiar Gravity.

A Man whose Physique Seemed All
AnGIes-A Face of Peculiar Gravity.
1t was a biting winters day that / be-
gan my journey to Springfield. A furious
snow storm was raging, and on my arrival
at the capital of Illinois the whole city
seemed almost buried under its white
mantle. The streets were blockaded, only
here and there a person was seen hurry
ing along the way, and the place appeared
as though substantially uninhabited. For
tunately, the fury of the storm had kept
away the usual army of office seekers, and
l had the good fortune to find Mr.. Lincoln
at the state house, with only Mr.. John G.
Nicolay, his private secretary, for a com
panion. Mr.. t. D. Jones, the sculptor,
of Ohio, who was engaged in making a
bust of the president, walked over from
the hotel and introduced me to Mr.. Lin
coin, who arose upon our entrance and
received us with unassuming cour-
tesy. Telling him at once that my visit
was purely official, and that office seek
ing formed no part of my mission, he
grasped my hand in the most cordial
manner, invited us to be seated, and re-
marked in a quizzing tone that as most of
his visitors wanted something, and gen
orally wanted it pretty bad, he was glad
to find nobody in Ohio had any such
itching.
This was the first time / had seen Mr..
Lincoln, and my first impression was that
he and Mr.. Nicolay we're the two homeli-
est men l had ever seen in one room at
the same time. The president at first
appeared to be all angles. His height
was great, his shoulders broad and square,
his legs, arms, body, forehead, nose, chin,
seemed angular. He was dressed in an
old fashioned black suit, well worn dress
coat, satin vest, cut very low in front,
displaying a large amount of shirt bosom.
The shirt was s~crupulously clean, but it
had been so often washed and ironed that
the edges were thoroughly well worn,
and covered with a kind of stiff bristling
fringe. The buttons were few in front,
and as Mr.. Lincoln seated himself in a
very low chair, he disclosed a strong,
powerful chest covered with hair like a
bison. His face was covered with a
stubby beard of a few weeks growth,
which he explained by saying that
he was growing whiskers to improve
the beauty of his appearance. His
hair was long, thick, sprinkled with
gray, and thrown back from q high,
broad, retreatin9 forehead. The percep-
tive faculties were unusually prominent,
the eyebrows strongly marked II
shaggy. The skin of his face was brown,
coarse, covered with burrows and deep
lines; mouth large, eyes sparkling, bril-
liant and thoughtful; hands and feet
enormous, and when seated his legs from
the knee down appeared out of all pro-
portion in length to the rest of his person.
He held in his hands a pair Of heavy, old
fashioned, silver bowed spectacles.
Altogether, his person and manner was
that of an extremely awkward, ungainly
man dressed in country fashion in his
Sunday clothes, visiting away from his
daily work and anxious to get back to his
ordinary occupation and working gar
ments. His face in repose was hat of a
vigorous, original, intellectual thinker,
but clouded with a peculiar gravity as
near to melancholy as it can be described.
When he began to talk the whole counte-
nanc %lightened, the eyes twinlled with
fun or shone with seriousness. At times
his laugh was so boi~sterous, boy like and
genuine that it wa positively infectious.
Cleveland Leader.